Voldemort & the Strangest Aeon
by DeVermisMysteriis
Summary: Wizards descended from Elder Things? A (more or less) good guy Voldemort? And Death Eaters who are Earth's only chance at salvation from the Old Ones? Welcome to the Strangest Aeon.
1. Chapter 1

Part I

"Shit," the pale, dark-robed man muttered under his breath. "Shit shit SHIT. Potter and his friends have scrambled. How am I supposed to find them now?"

The man's name was Tom Riddle, but he was better known to most of the wizarding world as Voldemort. The Dark Lord. He Who Must Not Be Named. They claim he is a dark wizard. They say he wants to overthrow wizard society. They say he hates Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic. They say he is a pureblood supremacist. And they say he is insane.

They would be right, except for the last two parts.

Voldemort may practice what some wizards would call dark magic. He may wish to overthrow wizarding society. He is, however, quite the opposite of a pureblood supremacist, and he is emphatically NOT insane. In fact, he is among the few wizards alive who knows the truth. His pureblood supremacist trappings are nothing but an act, part of what Muggles would call a "long con." Voldemort's "Death Eaters," much misunderstood by the wizarding world at large, are a death cult, based not upon some absurd concept of "pureblood supremacy," but instead upon the wholesale elimination of magic from the Earth. Many of them work against magic from within wizarding society, sabotaging the Ministry's dark experiments and trying their best to shut down or disrupt the operation of the indoctrination facilities which the Ministry has the gall to call "schools." All these and more are the goals of the man the wizarding world knows and fears as Lord Voldemort.

More immediately, however, his goal was to track down the scion of the New Aeon. Most know him as Harry Potter.

Years ago, Voldemort tried to break the spell of protection placed upon the young scion by his Ministry stooge parents. His intention was to eliminate the scion before that protective magic became a problem. He was only partially successful: he'd managed to weaken Harry's protective ward, but at the cost of his own physical form, and despite his prodigious power, he was only one jagged forehead scar closer to the scion's death. Languishing in the horrid semi-undeath of astral projection, he'd managed to make contact with a follower of his by the name of Quirrel, and through him return at least partially to life. Through Quirrel, he made yet another attempt to kill Harry, but was thwarted yet again by Lily Potter's insidious protective charm (which that demented old fool Dumbledore had always claimed was the "power of love" or some other such insipid nonsense, when in all actuality it was, as any dark wizard worth his salt could tell you, simple blood magic). Once again forced into his astral form, Voldemort made several more successive attacks (once even resorting to possessing an old diary of his he'd enchanted as practice whilst still attending Hogwarts), before finally managing to return himself to life with the help of Peter Pettigrew. Picked on and given the role of designated punching bag by his so-called "friends" at Hogwarts, kindly, quiet Peter was at heart a humanist, and among the loyalest servants the Dark Lord ever had. Voldemort came to love Peter as a son, and deeply regretted that he could not save his Animagus friend from having to spend years as a common house pet. To Peter, as to all Death Eaters, he revealed the horrible, alien truth behind wizardkind, and Peter came to hate himself and the threat that wizards posed to those who truly deserved to be the masters of this planet, the Muggles. Returning to life, Voldemort once again tried to kill Potter, and though he'd come close, the scion once again managed to escape with his life. Reminiscing on his repeated failure, Voldemort finally decided upon a new course of action: if he could not kill young Harry, he would reveal to him the truth. This was made all the more difficult by the fact that a splinter group of Death Eaters had recently taken clandestine control of the Ministry and was actively working against him.

_So here I am_, thought Voldemort, _the most powerful dark wizard since Grindelwald, with clairvoyance enough to match even Sybil Trelawney, and I'm reduced to searching the forests ON FOOT to find the teenage scion and his oh-so-loyal cadre of friends. Yeah, some Dark Lord I am. How the hell am I going to find these brats?_ _If only there were some way to-_

"That's it." Voldemort said aloud. "Nagini. That's it! I sent her to Godric's Hollow weeks ago. Perhaps the Potter party has passed through there recently."

Voldemort closed his eyes, focusing upon the thought of Nagini. Astral energy gathered in his mind before exploding skywards. In a split second, Voldemort had gone from the middle of the Forest of Dean to a rather comfortable house in Godric's Hollow. Voldemort opened his eyes again.

He was face-to-face with Harry Potter.

Before he even had time to react, a frizzy-haired girl emerged from the stairs behind Harry and blasted Nagini against a wall. Recoiling with pain, Voldemort was thrust back into his own body. Without taking time even to think, Voldemort retrieved his wand from an inner pocket of his cloak, waved it in the air, and disappeared.


	2. Chapter 2

Part II

Voldemort materialized in the house in Godric's Hollow, and was greeted by the sight of Harry and his friends attempting to Apparate.

"Imperio!" shouted Voldemort, and suddenly all three teens froze in place. Looks of horror still framed their faces as Voldemort glanced between them.

"Now that I have you exactly where I want you," said Voldemort, sounding almost too pleased with his own success, "I must tell you all something which may surprise you; I mean none of you any harm. This is likely rather difficult for you to believe (especially for you, Potter, given our, er..._history_, let us say), you must believe me, as I have reasons for keeping you alive. Reasons I shall soon explain. First, however, whilst you are all still under the sway of my Imperius curse, I shall take the precaution of relieving you of your wands."

Voldemort stepped forward and quickly snatched Hermione's wand from her hand. Ron's had fallen to the ground after the Imperius curse hit him, so Voldemort bent down to retrieve it as well. Finally, he came to Harry.

"And where, may I ask, is _your _wand, Potter?"

Harry's face was stock-still.

"As the caster of the Imperius curse which currently controls your actions, I command you to ANSWER ME! Now, I ask you again, where is your wand?"

Harry opened his mouth, but still said nothing. He had a look of intense focus in his eyes, which gave clear indication that he was actively resisting the curse. Voldemort would have been impressed, were he not currently trying to extract information from the young scion.

"Let me rephrase my earlier statements. When I said I mean you and your friends no harm, what I meant to say was that I mean you and your friends no harm so long as you do _precisely_ as I tell you. Let me make this clear to you, Potter: I am not Albus Dumbledore. I am not the smiling, infinitely patient old fool that he was. I am Voldemort. LORD Voldemort. Do not think that I am above killing you or your companions should it so suit me."

Finally, Harry relented. With his head, Harry gestured at the floor a few feet away, near Bathilda Bagshot's corpse and the still-unconscious Nagini. Voldemort looked, and saw several fragments of an exploded wand.

"Ah," responded Voldemort, "So I see you did not come away from your encounter with my Nagini entirely unscathed."

Voldemort looked over to the unconscious Nagini, then turned back to face the teens, a look of genuine sadness on his face.

"I also see that the same cannot be said of my poor friend here," he said, glancing over at Hermione. "You, girl, should count yourself lucky my Nagini was not seriously injured by your Blasting charm. I love her more than you could possibly know."

At this, the teens seemed extremely confused.

"Struck dumb by my ability to feel love, are you? Is it really so amazing, considering all you now know about Dumbledore and the innumerable lies he told, that he also lied about my being an evil, inhuman monster incapable of emotion? I am neither a patient man nor a kind man, but I am not incapable of experiencing or expressing emotion. Maybe, young soldiers of Dumbledore, there is more to me than you have been led to believe. More, perhaps, than even I myself have led you to believe. In fact, my desire to share with you three the truth is precisely the reason I have been so desperate to locate you. There is much about wizarding society that you do not know, much that the Ministry is dedicated to preventing you from knowing. That is why I am here: to share with you the truth which the Ministry has buried, burned, hidden, and tried its best to destroy."

With that, Voldemort waved his wand in the air, and the scion and his friends were suddenly free of his Imperius curse. Ron and Hermione immediately collapsed on the floor, exhausted. Harry simply continued to stand, the defiant look on his face a testament to his prodigious strength and willpower.

"Now that you are free from my control," began Voldemort, "I would like to extend to all three of you a most unique invitation. An invitation to learn the truth. This will require us Apparating together to the meeting place of my Death Eaters. As a show of good faith, once we have reached our destination, your wands will be returned to you under the promise that none of you will use them to attack me or any of my followers. Do I have your word on this?"

"Y-yes," muttered Ron, sounding extremely pained in doing so.

"Yes," said Hermione, picking herself up off the floor.

Harry, however, stood silent, angry and defiant as ever.

"Do I have your WORD on this, Mr. Potter?"

"No, you don't. This feels like a trap. In fact, it very clearly IS a trap. Why would you, the man who's tried to kill me my entire life, suddenly want to make peace and teach my friends and I some kind of mysterious 'truth'?" exclaimed Harry.

"I have no explanation for you, Potter, except that had I wanted to kill you and your friends, I could have already done so quite easily. Now, I ask you again: do I have your word on this?"

"...Yes."

Voldemort drew the teenage wizards and witch close to him and, with a flourish of his wand, disappeared into the night.


End file.
